Navigate:

Making sense of Solyndra

There are at least four probes into the ties between the White House and Solyndra. |
AP Photo
Close

Some Republicans are also calling for heads to roll, though they’re not saying yet who deserves to go.

“The bottom line is government fusses up and no one seems to take responsibility for this and I think someone should be fired,” said Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce oversight subpanel.

Text Size

“I want to see more before I come to that judgment,” Upton said Thursday when asked whether Chu should resign. “I don’t know what Chu knew or didn’t know.”

Is anyone going to jail?

Stay tuned.

FBI agents executed search warrants last week in Fremont, Calif., as part of a joint investigation with the DOE inspector general.

What’s known is the company executives offered plenty of positive spin when they visited earlier this summer with lawmakers, the press and other policymakers. Solyndra spokesman Dave Miller also emailed White House aides suggesting all was going well: “Hopefully, we’ll have a great story to tell toward the end of the year,” he wrote just months before the company went belly up.

“They came in and told us in July that their company was improving, they were on the upswing and things looked good,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), ranking member of the oversight and investigations subpanel. “We’d like to know what happened between July and now that suddenly they went into bankruptcy.”

Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), another member of the House subcommittee, said he felt duped by Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison when they met in Washington earlier this spring.

“He’s very persuasive one on one,” Terry said. “It kind of reminds you of [former Rep. Anthony] Weiner, doesn’t it? I’m going to do a bunch of interviews. I’m going to meet with people and see if I can get them to believe in my story.”

All affidavits remain sealed and FBI spokeswoman Julianne Sohn declined further comment on the status of the federal investigation.

Are green jobs still the future?

Obama made Solyndra a centerpiece of his green agenda, touting the company’s reliance on the loan guarantee — funded via the stimulus bill — in a May 2010 visit.

But not long after Obama left, the company started teetering. It closed one of its factories in the face of a sharp drop in solar panel prices from foreign competitors, primarily in China.

Solyndra filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 31, and when the president gave a high-profile economic speech to a joint session of Congress the next week, the once-common “green jobs” rhetoric was gone.

To the chagrin of environmentalists, his administration has also delayed EPA air and climate-change rules.

Solyndra’s failure will make it more difficult for wind and solar companies looking for tax credit extensions and new federal mandates.

“This place was supposed to be the poster child of how the original stimulus would create jobs,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the floor Thursday. “Now it’s bankrupt, and most of its 1,100 employees are out of work. And they want another stimulus?”

Democrats say they’re OK with the inquiries into the company — especially since the bankruptcy filing and FBI raids — but they don’t want it to ripple out and stop Obama from pursuing the energy policies he’d been advocating, even if there is risk of another Solyndra.

“This is one company,” said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “These are risky propositions whenever you’re dealing with innovation. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take those risks.”

"House Republicans say the potential wrongdoing they’ve found centers on how Obama officials skirted a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 when helping restructure Solyndra’s loan earlier this year, citing a clause under which outside financers were not allowed to jump ahead of taxpayers to be paid back in the event of default."

How is it that you managed to completely miss George Kaiser and his ties to both the Obama administration and Solyndra?

The real story is that Obama managed to get a half a billion dollar loan guarantee for a company directly linked to one of his campaign financers. If that is not the typical example of "pay to play" and "crony-capitalism", I don't know what is.

Look its pretty obvious that with constant government cash flow there is no incentive to oh I don't know, run a business in an efficient and cost effective manner. I mean we are talking about a company that spent 2 million in hiring lobbyist firms, that shows you what the priorities were; keep the tax dollars coming, figure out how to make money later.

darren, you proclaim 'this isn't watergate...' no,money wise this makes watergate look like kid stuff. fast and furious has dead people so it makes watergate look like kid stuff. get rid of the freaking dems and rino's in 2012.

It was clearly a political decisdion and not an economic one. The WH was involved in PUSHING it through. It was a gigantic WASTE of taxpayer money and poor judgement by the WH. One way to know is that any one who's ever been involved in a start up company knows they don't start out with a building designed by an architect etc. Start ups start in a wharehouse with minimum tools necessary, not all that expensive window dressing.

Solyndra is worse than all the classic scandals: Watergate, Iran Contra and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" Because it was fraud against the American people, plain and simple; done with public tax dollars, under the guise of a good cause. It was glorified pork barrel spending on the grandest of scales... at best it was Mafia-like money laundering... at worst it was a systematic milking of the U.S. treasury by the WH under the fraudulent guise of creating fictitious green jobs.

PART 1: Watergate vs. Solyndra: WATERGATE... was a coverup of illegal wiretapping of the opposite party, financed by a secret slush fund and network of operatives working for the president. There was a culture of corruption already in place for this to happen, by both parties.

SOLYNDRA... is, and continues to be, a coverup of venture socialism by the president, also financed by a slush fund (the stimulus) under total control of the WH, whereby operatives loyal to Obama (e.g. Oklahoma Democratic fundraiser George Kaiser) directly receive 100's of millions ($19 billion for green industries) of dollars to essentially money launder... invest in fake businesses while taking huge salaries, while marking up production costs for their pet subcontractors, like those $300 toilet seats the military pays for from time to time. This culture of corruption exists in Fannie and Freddie, which has seen Democrats receive millions in untold cash as managers of these government run entities (see Rahm Emanuel, for one).

PART 2: Iran Conra vs. Solyndra: IRAN CONTRA... secret operatives working for the WH facilitated the sale of arms to Iran (which had a U.S. embargo against it at the time) in order to secure the release of hostages and fund Nicaraguan Contras (U.S. allies to overthrow a communist dictator). Funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress, but remained a covert defense strategy of the WH............................................................................................................ SOLYNDRA... secret operatives working for the WH (Kaiser and his board of directors) wasted 100's of millions of tax dollars to finance the myth of green jobs, in order to prop up the president's left wing political and economic agenda. These operatives, in trying to fool the public into thinking that solar energy was a viable industry, covertly conspired with the WH to create lies about Solyndra's projected success, knowing full well the business model (IPO 2009 filing: Product cost was $6.29 per Watt, while the company sold its products for $3.29 per Watt.) was fatally flawed. Funding for green industries was limited by Congress, but remained a pet political and economic agenda item for the president; and under the stimulus, $19 billion was allocated to finance these fake energy companies. The $19 billion has barely been spent, by the way.

PART 3: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" vs. Solyndra: "I DID NOT HAVE SEXUAL..." President Clinton did in fact have sexual relations with Monica Lewinski in WH offices, which was proven by semen testing on Monica's dress. The president attempted verbal and syntactic acrobatics in an attempt to spin the truth into a lesser lie, palatable for his supporters, who were willing to accept his illogical and pathetic alibis, eventually forgiving him for his indiscretion(s). Congress attempted to impeach Clinton, and his last two years in office were totally inert in terms of policy making.............................................................................................................. SOLYNDRA... the current president has committed an equal indiscretion in the WH, by meeting with, planning with and supporting the fraudulent investors that went into building Solyndra. Officers of the company met with the WH regularly, as WH records show, and the president personally monitored the project, visiting the site (even as the company proceeded to go bankrupt) to make a proud PR speech on the success of green industries. Like Clinton's sexual weaknesses, Obama has an apparent weakness for venture socialism, wherein he uses tax payer funds to experiment with failed business ventures, ala, a communist central planner.

SUMMARY: Solyndra represents the wasting of half a billion dollars to pay for the myth of creating green jobs, in an industry that is not supported by the free market. The green energy industry is not a viable industry, but the president feels that billions of dollars should go into creating companies like Solyndra, which, from the outset, are known to have a tragically flawed business plan... and countries like China can already make Solyndra-like products at half the price. When the 2009 IPO was published, it stated that the cost of Solyndra products would be $6.29 per Watt, while the company sold its products for $3.29 per Watt. Everyone privy to the IPO was well aware that a company cannot survive by making a product at twice the cost of what it will be sold. Meanwhile, Obama monitored the company's progress and visited the site, just prior to its bankruptcy. Costs for producing and manufacturing the plant were inflated, in order to use up all the funds, ala, a typical government pork barrel project. Fraud is now the only question on everyone's mind. If fraud, then impeachment.